Revisiting the YouTube-sponsored original content channels

Half a year in, Weekend Ar(t)s struggles to define success for the initiative.

During the weekend, even Ars takes an occasional break from examining why prepaid phones are so popular or how Alan Turing doesn't get more credit. Weekend Ar(t)s is a chance to share what we're watching/listening to/reading or otherwise consuming this week.

It's not much of a surprise when you consider the popularity of the Asian-American pop culture blog, or that its YouTube channel launch featured content with Jessica Alba and Gillian Jacobs. By all accounts YOMYOMF will continue to attract clicks too—Community's Danny Pudi is set to star in a series and the Russo brothers (Arrested Development) will direct a high-school comedy.

But... does all this signify a success? Last October, YouTube announced it would be launching more than 100 original content channels throughout 2012. The initiative's introductory blog post made reference to how cable television significantly expanded society's viewing possibilities and likened that to this project. "Today, the Web is bringing us entertainment from an even wider range of talented producers, and many of the defining channels of the next generation are being born, and watched, on YouTube."

More than half a year after the launch, calling any of the original content channels "defining channels of the next generation" feels like a stretch. That's no fault of YOMYOMF or any of others. The content is funny, informative, surprising, etc. But surfing through the currently available YouTube-launched channels offers plenty of data without much to compare to.

As of Sunday afternoon (the recorded time for all the numbers below, things like subscribers and video viewings are quite volatile), YouTube launched 87 official channels with another 17 listed as "coming soon." Those debuts are presumably sprinkled throughout the rest of the year. The active outlets so far racked up 12,157,217 subscribers (average of 139,738 each) and 6,890,662,076 total views (79,203,012 on average).

These overall figures are a little misleading though. Many of the outlets YouTube recruited to take part in its original content push were preexisting Internet brands. Looking at a "coming soon" channel such as The Onion reveals they have 400,363 subscribers and 177,001,937 views before "officially" launching. No telling how many of the already existing channels tread similar paths.

Sadly, the same could be said of the initiative's lesser performers. Consider the science channel THNKR. Other YouTube official science entities—like the online behemoth that is TEDEducation—operate with an average subscribership of 68,917 (3,343,361 views on average). But THNKR? My personal channel, featuring home videos, blurry concert footage, and an embarrassing "How-to grow a mustache" video for a college class, somehow dwarfs its views. (I could be available to "define channels," YouTube. Just e-mail me).

Ultimately it's too early to truly evaluate the YouTube original content push, it's in its infancy. Many of the notable channels from those early press releases—multiple Warner Bros. channels, Deepak Chopra on health, Shaq rounding up comedians, Rainn Wilson doing science—have yet to come. Yes, some major, major names are churning out videos (the US Olympic Committee, Stan Lee, the Wall Street Journal). But anecdotally, these efforts lack the attention of their cable-based counterparts. No major media outlets yet devote critics to covering them (future Weekend Ar(t)s topic?), and unique, refined metrics are still be worked out to evaluate where one channel stands compared to others just yet.

The future of original video content may still be based squarely on the Internet. But for most of us, our attention is currently turned to acquiring media made for a slightly larger screen through a preferred method: DVR, online streaming, DVDs, or live cable for some dinosaurs. If you'll excuse me, time to get off the computer. Theoretically we all find out who killed Rosie Larsen tonight.

Update: Originally, EverydayHealthTV was used as a low performing YouTube channel comparison. My personal channel still outperforms it at the time of this correction. However, a PR team working with EverydayHealth points out they run two separate channels—EverydayHealth and EverydayHealthTV. PR representative Jocelyn Johnson (who works with Trium, production company behind some of the content) said the EverydayHealth channel is actually the one associated with YouTube's original content initiative (performing admirably: 25,104 subscribers and 5,700,698 views, ranked in the 30s in the Deadline ratings above). "As you can see we are much higher than you've noted. I understand where your confusion originated though, you're actually referring to the channel for our Emmy nominated ABC show by the same title."

At the time of this article (and this correction), the EverydayHealthTV channel remains linked from the official YouTube original channels page. While EverydayHealth's reported primary channel is much stronger, the gist of that passage still stands. Some of the original content channels have yet to take off and can be outperformed by average YouTube channels receiving minimal effort.

I've now compared mine above with THNKR, who was listed as active on the YouTube official content page at the time of the article. However, THNKR reached out to let me know their official launch took place on July 2 and new content is live.

Promoted Comments

It seems to me one of the biggest problems with this initiative is how poorly designed YouTube is for this kind of regularly scheduled content. The more channels I subscribe to, the harder it is to find those shows I'm actually interested in. And individual episodes are titled to maximize SEO, and not my ability to easily tell which show is which.

I can subscribe to Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, Start, Machinima, but like any television network, I only care about a small fraction of each channel's offerings, but there's no easy way to say I only car about this particular series on this channel so it doesn't get lost in the flood of crap in my subscriber feed.

It'd be like trying record How I Met You Mother on a DVR that will just start saving every single CBS show. Oh, and instead of organizing each series by name, It shows you a list of guest stars to identify each individual episode.

8 Reader Comments

It seems to me one of the biggest problems with this initiative is how poorly designed YouTube is for this kind of regularly scheduled content. The more channels I subscribe to, the harder it is to find those shows I'm actually interested in. And individual episodes are titled to maximize SEO, and not my ability to easily tell which show is which.

I can subscribe to Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, Start, Machinima, but like any television network, I only care about a small fraction of each channel's offerings, but there's no easy way to say I only car about this particular series on this channel so it doesn't get lost in the flood of crap in my subscriber feed.

It'd be like trying record How I Met You Mother on a DVR that will just start saving every single CBS show. Oh, and instead of organizing each series by name, It shows you a list of guest stars to identify each individual episode.

The tough thing in this kind of analysis of course is deciding what exactly we want to call a "success". It's especially important with youtube because from the outside the business model just does not look profitable. Great for viewers (who BTW still whine about every single ad) to have all those free videos and now channels. But is this creating the kind of revenue that could lead to independent content with high quality production? Is that even the goal? Are we just talking about page views and click throughs for the same kind of content that's been available for the last 10 years on the internet (as opposed to something that changes actual entertainment consumption habits) and if so, why would that be a big deal?

It seems to me one of the biggest problems with this initiative is how poorly designed YouTube is for this kind of regularly scheduled content. The more channels I subscribe to, the harder it is to find those shows I'm actually interested in. And individual episodes are titled to maximize SEO, and not my ability to easily tell which show is which.

I can subscribe to Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, Start, Machinima, but like any television network, I only care about a small fraction of each channel's offerings, but there's no easy way to say I only car about this particular series on this channel so it doesn't get lost in the flood of crap in my subscriber feed.

It'd be like trying record How I Met You Mother on a DVR that will just start saving every single CBS show. Oh, and instead of organizing each series by name, It shows you a list of guest stars to identify each individual episode.

There would actually be a simple solution to this problem: YouTube should allow subscribing to individual playlists. Most channels already neatly sort their different shows into playlists. Instead of subscribing to a whole channel, one should be able to subscribe to one of those playlists instead.

I think it's working. You won't really see it for a while yet, but this initiative has raised a lot of YouTube content to a place where it's production values are way better than local and cable content. There's still a lot of experimentation and figuring out how this stuff will work on everyone's end, but in five to ten years I can see this kind of content completely replacing just about everything on TV other than big budget scripted dramas. I'm sure broadcast TV and cable will still be around, but it will be re-broadcasting YouTube content for the most part outside of an ever shrinking prime-time block.

Right now it's only the niche and tech oriented creators jumping on YouTube, but before long we'll see more and more syndicated brands that target younger people making the jump, and then the daytime talk show market, etc.

There's also a ton of completely new things that are popping up and starting to get impressive numbers. Streaming gaming on things like twitch.tv is growing like crazy, and creating a whole new class of celebrities. People are making a modest living by just playing games, streaming it, and interacting with their fans. A few years ago that idea was completely ridiculous. The same goes for really niche content like comedy gaming lets plays on YouTube. I think a lot of people will end up dropping the generic one size fits all content the traditional TV players have pushed and switching to content that more closely fits their interests now that it's actually becoming available.

What actual numbers are we talking here though? for example if I was a TV star and I was in a show that drew 20 million people per week 24 times a year, I'd expect to be paid really well. How is that translating to online shows? I assume Felicia Day's stuff does well since her pic is featured here (which is amazing to me since she doesn't seem really talented) but the production on many of these shows certainly does not reflect success to me.

Didn't know about streamed gaming, that's a bit weird to me I have to admit. Netflix's supposed attempts to ressurect Jericho, a show I loved, will be a great proof of concept for some of this. It will give us something to directly compare.

It seems to me one of the biggest problems with this initiative is how poorly designed YouTube is for this kind of regularly scheduled content. The more channels I subscribe to, the harder it is to find those shows I'm actually interested in. And individual episodes are titled to maximize SEO, and not my ability to easily tell which show is which.

I can subscribe to Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, Start, Machinima, but like any television network, I only care about a small fraction of each channel's offerings, but there's no easy way to say I only car about this particular series on this channel so it doesn't get lost in the flood of crap in my subscriber feed.

It'd be like trying record How I Met You Mother on a DVR that will just start saving every single CBS show. Oh, and instead of organizing each series by name, It shows you a list of guest stars to identify each individual episode.

Brad hits the high points, but omits one particular point: persistence and control.It might surprise YouTube to learn this, but the year is 2012, not 1970. When I watch TV, I watch through a DVR (actually through EyeTV, but the same point) which offers

(a) persistence. When I pause a show, the pause does not "end"after a few hours. If I come back three days later, I can pick where I left off. If I start watching something else on EyeTV, then come back to the show I was watching a week later, it remembers where I am. On YouTube (and all streaming media) my connection is severed after a few hours, my position is lost, and no software is tracking it for later reuse.

(b) control. I have a fine remote for controlling EyeTV. The best I can do with YouTube is to try to cobble together some frakenRemote from UI devices and scripting. This will give volume control and play/pause, but not fast forward, or skipping forward/backwards. YouTube may think these are unnecessary, but that's part of problem, isn't it --- refusal to admit what people want. Let's say I am watching a show involving an interview and we've got to talking about the interviewee's cat, a subject I have no interest in. On EyeTV/DVR I can jump forward 30 sec and see if things improve. On YouTube, my choice is to say "screw this" and stop watching.

This evaluation of THNKR is unwarranted, given that we haven't launched yet. This article fails to take into account the status of many of these "lesser performers". Unlike the author's own channel, which has probably been in existence for multiple years, THNKR has only been around as a brand for a few months, and won't officially start posting episodes of its four new series until July 2nd. As of now, we only have 5 videos posted, 4 of which were only posted in the last two weeks! Even comparing us to to The Onion, another channel that hasn't officially launched, would be an inaccurate comparison given the level of awareness and affinity for that brand. Would you rate the success or failure of a start-up fast food restaurant by comparing it to McDonald's? Certainly not.

We at THNKR are excited about our impending launch and feel confident that the quality of our content will lead to large quantities of views and subscribers. On YouTube--and with online video generally--it's a marathon not a sprint, and we have yet to leave the gate.

Feel free to contact us on our twitter @thnkr. We'd be happy to discuss further.

Just checked the THNKR channel 150,000 views in like 2 days of being live. So basically what this says is the two examples you gave to say YouTube content are A. doing quite well and B. both outperforming your channel. So in essence, this article is basically irrelevant. Seems like poor reporting.